Taking the trash out today, I spotted the base of a broken CFL outside the cans, obviously dropped by a neighbor. Naturally, I took it inside and opened it up. (It looked like a fairly small one, 10-15W max.) Inside, I found:
Complicated little buggers. (These were all through-hole parts; nothing surface-mount.)
I salvaged the inductors, which can probably be used in one of my projects.
So all this stuff gets landfilled every time someone throws a dead CFL away. (Yeah, I know, they're supposed to be recycled, but we all know this doesn't happen to most of them, and besides, even for those that do get returned to some Official Recycling Station, how much of this electronic stuff do you suppose actually gets reclaimed?)
Oh, and it might interest you to know that the connections to the bulb itself weren't soldered but were wire-wrapped, of all things. My guess is that the power supply is made by one manufacturer, and the bulbs get assembled at a different plant, where they decided it would be faster/cheaper to wire-wrap the connections rather than solder them.
So the next time one of your CFLs goes out, you might want to open it up and check its connections ...
- 3 inductors (2 on small bobbins and one looking like a small transformer)
- 2 Q's, look like MOSFETS (marked "3003LD6", couldn't find any datasheets on them)
- 11 (!) diodes, not counting one zener
- 5 resistors
- bunch of capacitors, including a 22µF 200V electrolytic
Complicated little buggers. (These were all through-hole parts; nothing surface-mount.)
I salvaged the inductors, which can probably be used in one of my projects.
So all this stuff gets landfilled every time someone throws a dead CFL away. (Yeah, I know, they're supposed to be recycled, but we all know this doesn't happen to most of them, and besides, even for those that do get returned to some Official Recycling Station, how much of this electronic stuff do you suppose actually gets reclaimed?)
Oh, and it might interest you to know that the connections to the bulb itself weren't soldered but were wire-wrapped, of all things. My guess is that the power supply is made by one manufacturer, and the bulbs get assembled at a different plant, where they decided it would be faster/cheaper to wire-wrap the connections rather than solder them.
So the next time one of your CFLs goes out, you might want to open it up and check its connections ...
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